Reader Donn Ingle sent a variety of photos from his South African homeland (he lives in Betty’s Bay at the southern tip of the country). The captions are his:
Bee dancing in Protea repens:
Drososera sundew of unknown appetite:
Hoverfly on Nivenia:
Southern double-collared sunbird [Cinnyris chalybeus]:
Spider catching a bee:
The sassy ass of a jackass penguin (Spheniscus demersus):
“The sassy ass of a jackass penguin” – nice! 😉
+1
The flowers are so beautiful I might have assumed the photos were enhanced, but the true colors of the bees indicate the flowers are likely true as well.
The spider landed quite a meal.
Bees and presumably mimetic hoverfly that is.
The hoverfly is mimetic, the spider’s lunch is a honey bee.
Boy you should see all the fakers around here; fake wasps, fake bees. I wouldn’t be surprised to see fake flies!
Fly mimicry is used to great effect by anglers of the Homo sapiens sort of course. It could also be a good strategy for parasitizing frog guts: just make your egg case look like a juicy fly and bazinga! Free trip to the belleh!
What welcome bursts of color!! Beautiful photos, Donn.
Thank you!
I post all my photos to DeviantArt (my nom is Jellybush because the Leucadendron cone bushes quivver like jelly in the wind).
The link is: http://jellybush.deviantart.com/gallery/
Why does the penguin look scaly? (I have never seen one close up. Presumably the polar bears scare them off up here, where up is up.)
‘Tis a dinosaur’s offspring of course. 😉
I spotted my first tiny baby tomato on my plants today — thank you bees!